Has anyone successfuly answered the Photo and video permissions declaration?
Read media images: “Describe your app’s use of the READ_MEDIA_IMAGES permission”
Read media video: “Describe your app’s use of the READ_MEDIA_VIDEO permission”
What was your explanation for “why you believe you meet the requirements to use these permissions”
What SAB version was used to compile the app ?
Somewhere, it was mentioned : (October 2024)
"It looks like your app is needing the READ_MEDIA_VIDEO permission… There are two situations where this would be needed:
- If you allow downloading of videos in your app, or
- If you download .webm audio files (which are considered by Android as video files).
SAB 12.2.4 has been released with an update to save webm audio files to a different folder so that it doesn’t need READ_MEDIA_VIDEO permissions.
Scriptoria has been updated to use this version of SAB."
I am using the latest SAB v12.4. This is probably going to be a critical road block unless we can figure out how to satisfy Google Play. There are no webm files in this project, only mp3 audio links to Bible.brain and video links to the ScriptureEarth.org server. I believe this permissions issue relates to the verse on image feature.
@Bill_Dyck I have used the following explanation and so far haven’t had any problems from Google:
“This app allows for offline viewing of videos, so it needs this permission so that the videos can be read from a device folder.”
I worked will @Bill_Dyck today on this issue. Scriptoria cannot publish an app if this app content question is not answered somehow. We get this error:
Google Api Error: Invalid request - You must let us know whether your app uses any photo and video permissions.
For this specific app build with a previous version of SAB, it required READ_MEDIA_VIDEO and READ_MEDIA_IMAGES. However, the new version of SAB (since 12.2) uses the Android Photo Picker and no longer requires READ_MEDIA_IMAGES. We still hand to provide an answer so that Scriptoria could publish. These are the answers we ended up using:
READ_MEDIA_IMAGES
The next version we will upload will not require this permission. We have changed the application to use the Android photo picker.
READ_MEDIA_VIDEO
The user can download videos and save them in the device’s shared video storage to view the video when the phone is not connected to the internet.
We submitted these changes for review. Then we were able to publish the app from Scriptoria.
I am having this error with Scriptoria today:
“Invalid request - You must let us know whether your app uses any photo and video permissions”
Where do I change permissions and to what do I change them?
I think I found them under: Monitor & Improve | Policy & Programs | App Content
I have reviewed all the projects and added the necessary declarations in the Wycliffe Google Play Console. So the apps should all be appearing again. Let me know if you see anything amiss. Thanks for your patience.
Scriptoria seemed to be stuck in an endless loop but then in my email I noticed that the Publish step was failing. In the email notification I opened the log file and at the end I saw:
[12:36:57]: e[31mGoogle Api Error: Invalid request - All developers requesting access to the photo and video permissions are required to tell Google Play about the core functionality of their app - Retrying...e[0m
My previous version of the app used SAB 12.1.
I went into the Google Play Console and found this:
What confuses me is that my app doesn’t have any videos to download at all. Just .mp3 files. Should I write, “The next version we will upload will not require this permission.”?
Thanks!
(Tag: @ChrisHubbard)
We’ve seen this a lot too. The following entries for this have satisfied Google where this is concerned.
FOR PLAY STORE ISSUE ABOUT PHOTOS and VIDEO’s use these lines:
MEDIA: - Use of images for background to share text. No images are editable.
VIDEO: - To view video mpg links. No links are editable.
OR for both, this has worked.
“This app allows for offline viewing of photos and videos. Neither are editable, but it needs this permission so that the photos and videos can be read from a device folder.”
Thank you Dan.
Unfortunately, as a hymnal app, none of those scenarios apply in my case. There are no videos, and the only images in the app are packaged inside it. There is no “verse on image” function.
How can I tell if my 12.4 app does indeed request this video permission?
Hey Alex,
Sometimes it’s the dumbest things that work. We think a lot of these sorts of issues are cropping up because of AI and it’s stupid - interfering with things that were and are perfectly acceptable. Another example is the Privacy Policy issues of late. All we’ve done is add the title of the store to the same Policy and saved it to it’s own URL and it goes through. It’s the same policy, with only a few words (store name) that are different/added.
Chris will have the details on why this particular issue is being flagged. There is something calling for access to these two things in the apps we made too… even though it didn’t seem to apply to what was in the app either. Yet adding those lines allowed the app to clear and post. It might be worth a shot. Worst case scenario, it’s rejected and you have the chance to try again.
Thank you Dan! You’re right. Sometimes you just have to “go with it.”
I put this: “This app platform allows for offline viewing of photos and videos. Neither are editable, but it needs this permission so that the photos and videos can be read from a device folder.”
It was approved within the hour!
Fantastic! Glad it worked. That’s a good way to end the week.
Have a great weekend.